Repetition is very much important in Spiritual practices. It is not a silly thing; repetition is the whole key in the path of self realization. For example Mantra japa, we don’t even have to know the meaning of our Mantra. Mother says it’s enough you repeat it and don’t bother about the meaning. Just that repetition, again and again will gradually purifies the mind, will decrease thoughts. And everything will start to reveal itself. I knew a swami, he had been told by a mahatma to read the whole ‘Tulsi Ramayana’ 108 times. ‘Tulsi Ramayana’ is not a small book. He was said by a soul realized mahatma; if you want to make spiritual progress you read it 108 times. Tulsi Ramayana is a wonderful divine book written by a great Soul ‘Tulsi Das’, it’s about the incarnations of lord Rama. The swami took it very seriously; he knew that if a mahatma is telling to do a thing, then God is telling to do that thing. That is how we also should interact with Great Souls. if they tell us to do a thing, don’t take it lightly as if somebody in the street tells to do a thing. So he took it very seriously and started reading the’ TulsiRamayana’. What was he doing at other times? He was not doing anything at other times. He spent 20hrs a day reading Tulsi Ramayana and the other 4hrs for his sleep, food and bath. He told me when he reached the 100th time, he said many times up to that point it was very difficult. Sometimes he fell asleep and fell on top of the book and got very bored. Sometimes he was thinking, he was foolished to accept this idea and thinking how he gonna get through this, this was impossible. Even though somehow he persisted and decided to do it completely. By the 100th time that he was reading the book, the inner meaning of the words of Tulsi Das were flashing on him like waves of bliss that was drowning him in ecstasy. He could not even read one line, one line he would read and he burst into tears. He loses all consciousness of world and only Gods presence shining in him.
There is nothing to do with understanding. This is a modern tendency now that to read the scriptures and interpret the inner meaning!
“The Gopis are all the nerves in the Body and Krishna is the Paramatman. Gopis who went upto the seventh floor is actually the kundalini shakthi going to Sahasrara and the Krishna is walking on the road and the flowers thrown on him is the divine bliss…. !!! “
Some people who talk about the stories like this is just to satisfy the intellectual minds. Some people think over, what’s the meaning of it? You don’t have to do that all. If you take a book like bhagavatha, Ramayana etc written by a mahatma or a Sage, You read it again,again and again finally what happens is the grace of the Sage will start to dawn in you. And you get such a bliss, insight and intuition. The divine knowledge will come to you as the blessing and Grace of the Rishi. There is no other way. We can just exercise our intellect anyway and we don’t get it. We have to get the knowledge through Grace and Grace is attained through Repetition and discipline. Mantras are also like that. Just go on repeating again and again, the Grace will be dawn on you.
You might be heard of Shankaracharya of Puri. The same thing happened to him. He studied the Vedas and he felt some Veda mantras are senseless, like they are talking about some mathematical formula 1+1=3! And 3-2=4! He could not understand any of it.
But he had faith that whatever the ancient Rishis said that was true. He approached a Mahatma and the mahatma said that he couldn’t tell the meaning of the mantras but he could tell the way to find out the meaning. The mahatma said; the only way to know about these mantras is to get the Grace of Saraswathy Devi where the mantras come from. So the Shankaracharya was advised to chant the Saraswathi mantra and get the Grace of Devi. He obeyed the Rishis words and started doing Saraswathi mantra Japa and he done this for 8 years! Most of his days, day and night he was repeating devi mantra. And the same thing happened to him as in the case of the Swami with the Ramayana. It started to dawn on him what was the meaning of the mantras; it’s just flashed to his mind as the Grace of Saraswathy Devi. It was in a kind of hidden language, that actually 3 meant something else, ‘-‘meant something else and 2 meant something else. And when the meaning was figured out you could perform any mathematical calculation in just one step. He wrote a book in vedic mathematics which is the essence of what he got in the 8years. He came to America and taught this system in Many Universities and people were flabbergasted. I told this to a friend of mine who came to Vallikkavu (Amritapuri) and he got this book and he took it to Los Alamos Nuclear Research center in New Mexico. He showed the book to some scientist there and they couldn’t believe it. Because that system is something that nobody could figure out with their mind. This is the Grace of Repetition and don’t think repetition is a stupid thing. When mother says to regularly repeat your mantra, regularly do your meditation, it’s not just saying and not just to get a good habit. That’s the way you get the Grace.
Swami Paramatmananda Puri
